P. Terry’s donation pushes Season for Caring to $10 million in giving since 1999

The check for $31,640 from P. Terry’s Burger Stand delivered by owners Patrick and Kathy Terry was the magical check. Since 1999, Statesman Season for Caring now has raised $10, 017, 413 to help local nonprofit organizations help families in Central Texas.

Mark Needham eats lunch with family friend Addie Raab, 10, at P. Terry’s Burger Stand on West William Cannon Drive on Saturday. Saturday’s profits from all P. Terry’s locations were donated to the Statesman’s Season for Caring Campaign. JAY JANNER / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

“That is a huge number,” said Patrick Terry. “Good for you. We are delighted to be a small part of it.”

The check came from P. Terry’s Giving Back program, in which four times a year, all P. Terry’s locations donate a day’s profits. Giving Back Day for Season for Caring has always been the restaurant company’s busiest day and Saturday was no different.

The 13 P. Terry’s locations were ready for it. The company had a truck stocked with extra supplies that traveled around the Austin area restocking stores that were running low.

Employees ran orders and change up and down drive-through lines. They manned all the cash registers in the stores. “Everybody stepped it up,” Patrick Terry said.

Since 2009, P. Terry’s has given more than $164,000 to Season for Caring through its Giving Back program and more than $600,000 to local charities for all of its Giving Back Days since it started the program a year after opening the first restaurant in 2005.

While more than $10 million is an amazing figure, there are still much more Season for Caring funds that need to be raised this year. Since launching this year’s program on Nov. 27, Season for Caring has raised $222,774 in monetary donations and $52,864 in in-kind donations of goods and services for a total of $275, 638. Last year’s program raised $737,464. We are only about a third of the way there to beating last year, which was the third best year ever.

Season for Caring donations get used all year long by the featured nonprofit agencies to help the featured families as well as hundreds of other families who need help with basic needs such as rent, groceries, utilities, medical bills and transportation.